General Purpose Detectors

Often asked ‘what makes a good general purpose metal detector?’. Well, what are you going to go looking for? Don’t know…… That leaves it wide open.

First off, if you are going gold nugget hunting, as in looking for natural raw gold as found in the ground, a true specialty detector is advised. Sure, some of the general purpose detectors such as the White’s MXT do have a gold ‘mode’, but you are probably going to have more luck with a machine designed from the ground up with only one purpose in mind. Gold nugget hunting requires a specialty machine that can detect small fragments of gold that most detectors won’t pick up in soils which are mineralized. Mineralized ground is just naturally where gold turns up.

Another type of detecting which requires a specialty detector is ‘deep’ cache detecting. This is looking for larger objects buried at depth of more than 1/2 a meter. This requires going to a ‘two box’ detector such as the Fisher Gemini 3. However, detectors like this that detect deep won’t pick up things much smaller than a large can, so forget about things as small as a coin.

Another trying place is beach hunting. Many detectors can’t handle the mineralized salts in wet sand and thus have a problem. If the control box is to get wet, then you will be limited to a water proof detector such as the Fisher CZ-21, Fisher 1280-x or White’s Beach Hunter ID.

Now for the picks for general detecting, the Fisher F-75 and the White’s MXT are very good detectors (along with the entire F series, depending on the budget). The target identification really helps avoid digging a lot of trash so prevalent here in Thailand. The F-75 detects coins down to about 30 centimeters depending on soil conditions.